


Unposted

by Peachy_keen



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Epistolary, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 04:47:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2568722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peachy_keen/pseuds/Peachy_keen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the train, Steve finds this letter with Bucky's things...</p>
<p>Chapter one is the letter, chapter two is a ficlet written around it...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Letter

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Unposted/未寄出的信](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6358210) by [kiii17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiii17/pseuds/kiii17)



Steve,

I’m sorry you have to read this, it was something I knew would come but never wanted.

This letter is the last piece of myself I have to give to you. I’m sorry. I can’t say how sorry I am for leaving you alone. I never wanted to cause you pain, though I think it was inevitable from the moment they shipped me out. I know we said that we were gonna go back to Brooklyn and you would marry your girl and live next door until we were too old to do anything but lay back and listen to the Dodgers, but the war’s too deep in me. I’ve changed Steve. There’s no place for me there.

I was always gonna die in this war Stevie. I could always feel it coming, from the second I got those damn draft papers… I’m sorry I never told you, I just figured you’d take it easier if you didn’t know they were dragging me away. You wanted to fight so badly even when this war would swallow you, and I was just so ashamed and so afraid, so _so_ afraid. I couldn’t leave, not when I knew what would happen without me there. I had to take care of you and you know it. Your lungs were getting worse every damn year. How could I stand myself if I left for war and let the only good thing on this earth die because _I wasn’t there to save it_. Now, at least, you have everything you need to live, really live, not just scrape by and pray to see another spring, and _god_ baby I want you to have it. I love you Steve, can’t remember a time I wasn’t in love with you. I know I never told you, I just couldn’t have you looking at me different, all sorry cause you couldn’t love me back. I couldn’t bear it. But god I needed to say it just the once, I don’t want my lie between us forever. You have your girl now so let her take care of you okay? You can’t blame me for your stupid anymore.

As much as I hated you being here, at least it gave me more time with you. You’re the only thing that makes me warm anymore. Zola hollowed out my bones and poured ice in me. Opposites to the end, you and me. The warm and the cold, the light and the dark, the living and the dead.

I don’t know what happened to me at this point but I’ll tell you this, it wasn’t your fault. I know you Steve, better than anybody living. You blame yourself, doesn’t matter what actually happened. You didn’t do this to me. Whatever the dangers were, I faced them to protect you, to get you home, safe, sooner. You’re so good Stevie. I’d fight the devil himself and win if it meant saving you, and the only way they’d take me home was in a box so don’t go thinking you should’ve just sent me off to Brooklyn.

You shine Stevie. You make everyone better, to _want_ to be better, even me, though I’m twisted enough to want you in all the ways I shouldn’t. I’ve loved you from the second I saw you and I’ll love you into death. It’s written on my soul, and that will never change.

Please don’t think badly of me for it.

Bucky


	2. The Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I had someone ask for Steve's reaction to the letter... Hope you like it! I tried! :)

Steve doesn’t remember the ride back to the rendezvous point. He hung there, sagged against the train, unable to open his eyes because until he did it wasn’t real. It wouldn’t be real if he just stayed, if he stayed still long enough, then maybe he’d wake up. If he rejected this reality for long enough then something would have to change, he would force it to. But through his numb haze he can feel the wind has stopped, the metal is still under his fingers, the vibrations from the track don’t rattle the hollowness of his bones.

The Commandos will start looking for them after a while. He should move, meet them outside, ease their worry over them but how can he?

Bucky isn’t there. There is no ease to offer.

He doesn’t know how long it takes, maybe years. Dimly he can hear voices, someone shouts, Dum Dum, he thinks. Hands grip him, prying his fingers open, pulling him off the rail and his legs buckle. He’s absently aware that he’s not as easy to carry as he used to be, maybe he should try and stand, but the Commandos grip under his arms, sling them over their shoulders. All at once the cold hits him, he shivers so hard it’s a wonder he doesn’t throw them off, their warmth an immediate contrast to how frigid he didn’t realize he was. He didn't think he could get cold like this anymore. He hated it more than anything, whenever he caught a fever it was always the chills that got him down. Whenever it got especially bad Bucky was always there, crawling under the blankets, trying his best to chase the cold away.

He can’t help this time though.

Bucky’s body will never be warm again.

Steve’s stomach heaves at the thought. Bucky cold, Bucky broken in the snow. Eyes iced over like all the corpses left to winter.

Bucky as a _corpse_.

He wrenches himself away and falls, vomit staining the snow. He shakes, gulps in air, desperate, he can’t pick himself up, weaker than he’s ever been, at ninety-five pounds or two-hundred and forty. And in that moment, with no Bucky to drag him to his feet, to brush him off and smile, laughing _Christ Rogers you’re a mess_ , Steve has no idea how he’ll keep breathing.

* * *

 

The Commandos have gone off on their own to grieve. They had sit with him, for a while, Steve just counting breaths, staring at Bucky’s pack on the opposite cot. At four-thousand nine-hundred and seventy-three, they filed out, unable to bear Steve’s silent grief for one breath longer, seeking a different kind of solace. It must be hours before Steve forces himself to move, sinking heavily beside the pack. He strokes the worn fabric, hesitant, feeling over the careful stitches Bucky worked, holding it together far longer than it’s endurance should allow. He undoes the strap, opens it, forcing himself through ingrained instinct not to touch, Bucky hated others going through his things. There isn’t much: a change of clothes, three extra socks, a half empty carton of Luckies. He always looked so sheepish when he smoked one, used to withholding for the sake of Steve’s lungs. One time he had lit up with him, the look of horror on Bucky’s face enough to keep him laughing for days.

He’d never kept much, an old habit. Neither of them ever really got attached to their possessions, they were too likely to be sold for milk money anyway. The only things left were an unsettling amount of knives and his grandfather’s silver pocket watch. Before boarding the train out, Bucky’s mother had pressed it into his hand. _For luck_ , she said, his father had survived the war before with it in his pocket, it would do the same for him.

Bucky never brought it into the field, and he never wound it. The ticking was too fast, too rough on his now frenetic nerves. He used it to help him come down after missions though, spinning it in his hands, winding the chain around his fingers. Steve understood now, holding it. The weight of it was grounding, the etchings on the case easy to focus on, something to trace with his eyes. He puts his hands on the knob, tries to turn it but it won’t budge. Had it broken? Bucky never said. It was irrational, but Steve _needed_ this one thing to work, the world was broken but time, nothing could stop time. He fumbles at the back to expose the works, fingers feeling bigger, more clumsy, out of place like they hadn’t been for the past year. It clicks open, a folded sheet of paper falls to the bedsheets. As he opens it, there’s only one thing he thinks it could be…

_Steve,_

_I’m sorry you have to read this, it was something I knew would come but never wanted._

The empty space inside his chest throbs. Of course, of course he had written a damn death letter. And suddenly he couldn’t breathe with all the anger inside of him. How dare Bucky leave this for him, have this written out like he was waiting to die.

The worst of it though, the worst is that voice in his head whispering the devastating truth he can’t quite face: _But he wasn’t wrong..._

 _This letter is the last piece of myself I have to give to you. I’m sorry. I can’t say how sorry I am for leaving you alone. I never wanted to cause you pain, though I think it was inevitable from the moment they shipped me out. I know we said that we were gonna go back to Brooklyn and you would marry your girl and live next door until we were too old to do anything but lay back and listen to the Dodgers, but the war’s too deep in me. I’ve changed Steve. There’s no place for me there._ (He hates it, he hates that he can see the truth in his words. He had changed, he was different. The softness, the _joie de vivre_ that Steve had known his whole life had been distinctly missing, cut out in Austria, he’d assumed. Maybe it was worse than he ever knew.)

 _I was always gonna die in this war Stevie. I could always feel it coming, from the second I got those damn draft papers…_ (His breath hitches… Bucky had been forced to come here, and he, he made it worse asking him to stay. He’d said yes, of course he’d said yes, when had he ever denied Steve anything?) _I’m sorry I never told you, I just figured you’d take it easier if you didn’t know they were dragging me away. You wanted to fight so badly even when this war would swallow you, and I was just so ashamed and so afraid, so so afraid. I couldn’t leave, not when I knew what would happen without me there. I had to take care of you and you know it. Your lungs were getting worse every damn year. How could I stand myself if I left for war and let the only good thing on this earth die because I wasn’t there to save it._ (He’s not Bucky, he’s not, he’s never been as good as he wished he could be, as Bucky thought he was) _Now, at least, you have everything you need to live, really live, not just scrape by and pray to see another spring, and god baby I want you to have it. I love you Steve, can’t remember a time I wasn’t in love with you. I know I never told you, I just couldn’t have you looking at me different, all sorry cause you couldn’t love me back. I couldn’t bear it. But god I needed to say it just the once, I don’t want my lie between us forever._ (No. No no no no no no god Bucky _no_ ) _You have your girl now so let her take care of you okay? You can’t blame me for your stupid anymore._

 _As much as I hated you being here, at least it gave me more time with you. You’re the only thing that makes me warm anymore. Zola hollowed out my bones and poured ice in me. Opposites to the end, you and me. The warm and the cold, the light and the dark, the living and the dead._ (And Steve, Steve can only choke. Breath sputtering with all the tears he hasn’t cried yet.)

 _I don’t know what happened to me at this point but I’ll tell you this, it wasn’t your fault._ (And it was, oh god how it was) _I know you Steve, better than anybody living. You blame yourself, doesn’t matter what actually happened. You didn’t do this to me._ (Yes he did) _Whatever the dangers were, I faced them to protect you, to get you home, safe, sooner. You’re so good Stevie. I’d fight the devil himself and win if it meant saving you, and the only way they’d take me home was in a box so don’t go thinking you should’ve just sent me off to Brooklyn._

 _You shine Stevie. You make everyone better, to want to be better, even me, though I’m twisted enough to want you in all the ways I shouldn’t. I’ve loved you from the second I saw you and I’ll love you into death. It’s written on my soul, and that will never change._ (And he’s fighting tears fiercely as he ever fought anything. He can’t let himself, he’ll never be able to stop)

_Please don’t think badly of me for it._

_Bucky_

The last line breaks him. _Please don’t think badly of me for it_. As if he ever could. As if he hadn’t felt that same kind of awful the minute he realized that warmth in his chest whenever he saw that quicksilver grin was something he could never share, that Bucky was something he could never have.

The only thing he can do is cry, ugly, heaving, gulping sobs.

Because his world just came to an end.

He puts the plane down two days later. The cold has never been more welcome.

* * *

 

_Bucky’s in his uniform, all clean pressed lines and fresh fabric, Steve looks nothing less than ragged next to him. It’s one of those rare days where the haze of the city has cleared away and everything is just… brighter._

_They’re halfway to the station when Bucky gives in to the urge to touch, slinging an arm around Steve’s shoulders, “You’ll miss me Rogers, admit it,” grinning down at the gold that shines just a little lighter than normal._

_“‘Course. I’ll miss your godawful snoring and your stink when you finish work. Don’t get me started on washing your socks, boy that’s just swell-” He takes his arm back and gives Steve a quick shove, both laughing as he almost stumbles into a lamppost._

_“Yeah, Steve,” a sweet, sad smile on his face, “You’ll see. Without me life just ain’t worth living.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have a tumblr now! I have no idea what I'm doing but check me out if you feel the need! 
> 
> http://viva-dee.tumblr.com/
> 
> (I also have no idea how to link, or just internet in general...)

**Author's Note:**

> Well here goes nothing...
> 
> So I've never posted anything before, I can't really write plot to save my life but characterization seems to go pretty alright... Tbh I'm kinda itching to make this anon cause I'm way too socially anxious even on the internet where nobody knows who I am... 
> 
> Not so sure if this sounds okay out of my own head so lmk! Any feedback is appreciated! :)


End file.
